Movie Review : “Life of Pi” (2012)

Everyone has his/her own story of life, either it is ordinary or extra ordinary for him/her or for other people. For Pi Patel (Suraj Sharma/Irrfan Khan), becoming the only survivor of shipwreck in the middle of Pacific Ocean taught him about life, faith and most important thing, God. Not only he had to spend days on a lifeboat in the middle of nowhere, he also had to “cooperate” with another companion which happened to be a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. His fear of being eaten by Richard Parker unexpectedly forced him to fight and survive day by day until he finally reached a land one day and saved. Simply said, an animal that supposed to be his enemy in actual saved his life, and in addition made he realized that God is always there even when he was at his lowest faith.

That was pretty much the main idea of this movie which was performed beautifully on silver screen. Of course, Pi’s other version of the story in the end made you wondering which one the right story was. But as Pi said, no matter what version you chose to believe, there was one fact that remained : Pi had lost his family and been suffered a lot for days in ocean. I guess it then depends on people to take the more convenient story for them to digest and accept it as the way it is.

I found myself fell in love with this movie. I haven’t read the book, but now I am dying to find and read the book. How the story being told from one scene to another made me really curious on how it was described on Matel’s novel.

Ang Lee surely did a great job on this movie, particularly for the computer graphic and also beautiful sceneries all over the place. It might be even better if you watched the 3D version since we could taste Pi’s experience in ocean ( I only watched the regular version though :P). So many views took my breath away, and several times I wish I had been on the boat with Pi to take some pictures with my camera, e.g. the sunrise and sunset scenes which were really beautiful.

Suraj Sharma and Irrfan Khan did their job well as Pi, though I was more convinced with Irrfan as adult Pi. The transition from child Pi until adult Pi was nicely performed, I could actually believe that Pi had always been a unique character, and being a survivor was just a way to reconfirm his different way in seeing life and God. Another character which somehow made me felt compassion was Richard Parker. Sure, he was a Bengal tiger and a wild animal, but I could feel his presence deeply and in the same time also feel sorry for him to be also a shipwreck survivor. Richard Parker felt almost like a humanly wild animal for me, which might not be too surprising if we refer back to Pi’s other story.

Overall, it was a good movie to watch, not only for the interesting story, but also for beautiful images and graphics along the way. In the end, I can only think about how people could do anything to survive for their live, and how people would believe what they want to believe to give them strength in continuing their life. It was just a matter of choice, and either way, as long as you feel comfortable and happy with it, nothing is wrong with it.

a beautiful movie, indeed
Not only for the cinematography, but the story it self also beautiful.
Above all, what Pi said at the end of the film will linger in my mind for long time, definitely : “And so it is with God”, maybe the most beautiful sentence along the movie.